Nightmares
by Spindleshanking
Summary: Monsters take what they want. And what Belle can't remember won't hurt her. [Dubcon]


Belle was certain she had never seen this part of the Dark Castle before.

Given the weeks so far that she had spent dusting it, that ought to have been more surprising, but she was starting to suspect that the place had enchantments of its own quite apart from its master. How else could she explain staircases appearing where she was quite certain there hadn't been any the day before, or how sometimes Belle would open the door to the scullery and find herself staring instead into an immense—if dusty—armory.

Unless that was just Rumplestiltskin having a laugh at her expense. It wouldn't be unlike him.

But if this were a familiar hall Belle was sure the floors would have the decency not to rock and sway drunkenly beneath her while she tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. They had better not, anyway, not with all the time she had put into scrubbing them.

The thought—that floors might be grateful for being scrubbed—makes her giggle, her head feeling curiously light. She stumbles and the treacherous unfamiliar floor slips away from her entirely. A strong arm around her waist is the only thing that keeps her upright.

Rumplestiltskin, she realizes. Belle lifts her head from where she had been focused on making sure that tricky floor didn't escape from her again. Her hair has fallen in her face, leaving her squinting up at him through a curtain of brown curls. She puffs out her cheeks in a futile attempt to blow them out of the way, but the hair only flops limply back against her face.

He's close beside her, Rumplestiltskin; pressed against her right side, with one arm wound around her waist and propelling her forward. She peers askance at him through her hair. It simultaneously feels like he is a great distance away and far too close, both at once.

Belle wonders how it is he manages that. Magic, most likely.

Either way, it makes her faintly nauseous. Her eyes drift shut, the pounding in her head making it difficult to look at him any longer.

How did she come to be in this hallway with him? He's so close that she can feel the warmth of his body where it seeps through her clothing.

A distant little part of Belle remembers to be surprised that he is warm. She had always imagined that his scaled flesh would be cool to the touch, like the little water lizards she used to catch in her hands when she would play by the stream as a child. _Not,_ she giggles again at the thought,_ that Belle has been thinking about touching Rumplestiltskin._

The arm around her waist gives a little tug, urging her along.

Where were they going? She tries to think back, to remember, but her thoughts slip around each other and away in bright little flashes before she can get a hold on them. It's so difficult to concentrate…

_She remembers waking this morning, cold and stiff on her little pallet of straw and pilfered blankets. (Stolen from Rumplestiltskin, from his very own bed. Everyone back home would be horrified if Belle told them she had taken from the Spinner. But while he had been unmoving on his decree that she must sleep in the dungeons like a proper captive, Belle had decided that there was no reason it needed to be an uncomfortable dungeon. )_

_She remembers the staircase in the main hall, and clinging to his arm, weak with laughter, as her little shoe went tumbling back down the stairs into the darkness, lost forever. (That explains why her toes are cold.)_

It takes Belle several seconds to realize that they've stopped moving and her mind hurries to catch up with the rest of her.

Without opening her eyes, Belle can tell that Rumplestiltskin is still far too close by. She is surrounded by that particular scent that clings to him—something like leather and sour milk and old, closed up spaces.

He crowds her up against a wall without releasing his clinging grasp on her waist, so that his arm is pinioned behind her lower back. Belle wrinkles her nose, thinking of his rotten teeth, when she feels his breath on her face, hot and smelling faintly of wine.

_She remembers cleaning up after supper, already dreading her nightly return to that dank little dungeon cell, and Rumplestilskin's voice stopping her at the door. He had surprised her by asking her if she would stay and keep him company for a while. He had a bottle of very fine wine that he had taken great pains to acquire personally from the cellar of some ancient king. It would be a shame, he said, to drink it alone…_

_He was so polite and unassuming that Belle couldn't bring herself to suspect him of any mischief, and yet he had avoided her eyes, as if expecting rejection._

_She remembered dragging another chair in front of the fire, then watching with delight as he freed the cork with a showy pop and pulled two sparkling crystal goblets out of the air. He enjoyed showing off for her._

_Smiling into her glass, Belle had requested the tale of how he had come by this particular delicacy. She enjoyed his stories almost as much as he enjoyed telling her how he had come by his treasures. And he enjoyed them even more, it seemed, when the stories were particularly gruesome._

_She remembered the way the wine caught the firelight, as Rumplestiltskin's creaking voice chilled her with a story of crumbling castles and cursed princes. It made her think of blood._

Her memories after that became tangled. Pulling at them only makes her head pound harder.

She would like to open her eyes, like to ask Rumplestiltskin where it is he's brought her and why, but her eyelids are heavy and her tongue refuses to obey. She feels flushed, curiously aching. Her head is spinning, swathed in something much heavier than simple drunkenness. _Something isn't right…_ she struggles to think.

Belle manages a weak querulous noise, but he hushes her—a soft little susurrus of breath that rushes warmly over lips. Her tongue darts out to chase it.

When did they grow so close? She could lean over—just a little—and kiss him if she wanted to…

_…Why would she want to do that?_

The fingers that trace a line down her bare arm are cold. Belle sucks in a little breath at the sudden chill.

How can his hands be so cold when the rest of him is so wonderfully warm? She finds herself caught, torn between the conflicting urges to cringe away and to wrap herself around all that mirrored warmth.

"So soft… " he murmurs, so quietly she's not even sure if she's really heard him.

His hand leaves her arm, reaching up to push the stray tendrils of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ear, his palm cradling her jaw briefly before continuing down, cold along the line of her throat. The touch is feather-light, just the barest pads of his fingers and the sharp edge of one long fingernail, and yet Belle feels her entire world narrow to the lines of ice he draws along her overheated skin.

A sound that might have been a whimper escapes her when his fingertips catch at the neckline of her dress.

"Belle…"

She can hear him breathing. He's panting like he's just run the length of the castle, his breath tickling her hair. It makes her think of the ocean and the rhythmic crashing of waves. Belle certainly feels like she's being drawn out to sea. Every harsh breath in her ear pushes her further away from shore until she is drifting, alone in the blackness behind her eyelids.

Rumplestiltskin speaks, but Belle can't quite make out the words. She sucks in a shaky little breath as his arm cinches around her waist, pulling their bodies flush, knees to belly. Here there's warmth, and Belle relaxes into it gratefully.

He groans into her neck. Belle can feel the tip of his nose (cold) and then his mouth (warm, so warm) against her skin. It washes every other thought from her mind. Nothing else matters, nothing else exists except his lips on her neck, his hands clutching at her hips, and his body where it's molded with hers.

"Say yes, Belle," he croons, his voice suddenly cutting through the fog that surrounds her. "You have to say it." It seems to be inside her head as much as in her ears. A shred of curiosity flares behind it, clearing a little more of the haze.

"…'yes'?" Belle asks thickly. _Yes to what?_

Then suddenly she's falling. Belle thinks she gives a little yelp as the wall behind her vanishes into nothingness, sending her tumbling back, dizzy and disoriented.

Her arms come up to scrabble weakly, catching at his sleeves, at the front of his waistcoat, but her fingers can't seem to find purchase. He slips out of her hands, and it's like trying to catch water or smoke. Then she's falling, certain that there's nothing beneath her but blackness waiting to swallow her up.

Belle falls. Falls and falls and falls for an eternity before she realizes she's already landed. She is lying on her back, being rocked slowly by an unseen tide. Awareness drifts in then, in disconnected flashes of sensation.

_Something soft beneath her cheek and clutched in her fists._

_A breath of cold air across her bare knees._

_A glimpse of unfamiliar stone walls and brocade canopy, washed gray by thin, watery moonlight before her heavy eyes flutter shut again._

_She wants to squirm—her legs are cold—but finds her limbs refuse to obey. Trying to move them she is quickly exhausted. Surrendering, she sinks back into the cradling softness with a quiet sigh._

_An echoing sigh from somewhere above her. Sounds that might have been words._

From a great distance away she feels another line of ice drawing slowly up her calf, her knee, the inside of her thigh. Something pushes insistently there, coaxing her legs to part before continuing up…

She does writhe then, but cannot tell if she is trying to move away or towards.

_A whimpering sound,_ and Belle has just enough presence of thought to think that it might have been her, before she is engulfed in a _warm, smothering darkness._

It covers her, pinning her leaden body to the bed. Twines itself around and around her like a serpent until she cannot move, cannot breathe—

Her nurse used to tell her stories—of monsters, creatures that came in the night to sit upon the chests of sleepers to ravish them and steal their dreams. Belle had never believed her. She had thought they were only stories to frighten children with. She wants to cry out (surely Rumplestiltskin will come and save her, if she screamed?) but she cannot make herself draw breath to do so.

_Clawed hands clutching at her—at her hips, her breasts, skimming along the sides of her belly (and briefly, gently, the side of her face). A heavy weight between her knees, forcing them apart—_

Suddenly there's pressure and hurting, and this time Belle does cry out—a weak, watery little gulp of pain. The pain gives her strength, hands coming up to push at the figure above her before they're captured and pinned to the bed.

_Stretching, tearing pain—_

_"Belle… oh, Belle…"_

_Harsh breathing, warm and damp in her ear._

_The sharp sting of teeth as biting kisses trail down her neck, across her shoulder._

She wants to scream. Wants to cry, to struggle, to fight, to breathe—

And then she is lost, drowning in blackness again.

Belle awakens slowly.

The pillow beneath her cheek is soft. Belle buries her face in it; breathes in fresh cotton and goose down. Sleep clings to her, heavy and warm, and she allows it to pull her back down for long indefinite stretches before rousing herself again.

She had dreamt, but of what she can't remember…

Bright light stings at her eyes, sending lances of pain pounding through her head. The pain sends a sudden answering jolt to her stomach, which twists, heaves—

She curls over the side of the bed, retching, as the meager contents of her stomach spatter wetly all over the rug.

When she no longer feels like her body is trying to turn itself inside-out Belle hauls herself back up onto the bed. She scrubs at her mouth and streaming eyes with the back of her hand before collapsing against the mound of pillows.

There is a pitcher of water on a table beside the bed. Arms still a bit weak, Belle fills the matching little porcelain cup, spilling a little water on the table in the process. She gulps down the rest gratefully, eager to be rid of the foul taste in her mouth. With steadier hands she fills the cup again, then once more. The water goes a long way towards settling her stomach, though it doesn't do much for the pounding in her skull.

Shielding her eyes from the light with one hand, Belle takes a better look at where she is. It isn't any room she's seen in the castle before.

The bed she's in is narrow but soft, with airy, cream colored linens. Heavy brocade bed-curtains are pinned back, allowing in the crisp morning sunlight that streams from a nearby window. Like the bed, the room is narrow, but comfortable, with high, curving walls that reminds her of the turret room where Rumplestiltskin keeps his ingredients for his spells.

Beneath the window is a trunk and beside that a bookshelf- empty, she's a bit disappointed to note-of the same delicate, light-colored wood as the bed and the little table.

It's a pretty little room. A woman's space—moreso than any other room she's seen in the castle, most of which are taken up with Rumplestiltskin's trophies and trinkets. It certainly isn't the dank little dungeon cell, smelling of dust and straw, that she's become used to waking up in.

Her first week in the castle, once she had mastered her nerves, Belle had asked Rumplestiltskin about providing her with a proper room. He had given her a sticky sweet smile and purred her that if she was cold there was plenty of room in his bed. Belle had frozen, horrified. The pile of laundry in her arms sliding to the floor in a heavy whumph. She had only managed to stammer out a stiff, "No, thank you," before he was laughing at her, that nervous, birdlike twitter of a laugh. "Not serious!" he crowed, sniggering at her burning cheeks as she tried to gather up her laundry and escape the room with as much dignity as she could muster.

She had been… worried, of course, when he first brought her here. Despite what her father thought, Belle wasn't so naïve as to be unaware of what man might really want from a young girl asked to come and be his 'caretaker'. But Rumplestiltskin had never so much as touched her. Apart from when he would mock her (truly horrendous) cooking or tease her, with a nasty sort of childish glee that Belle found it difficult to be truly offended by, Rumplestiltskin barely paid her any attention at all. She felt like one of his endless dusty treasures- something that he had acquired, admired, and then quite forgotten about.

Belle had avoided him for the rest of the day, until she managed to convince herself that she was being foolish. Rumplestiltskin's quip was just that—a cruel jest designed to tease her for her innocence.

But there must have been some decency in him, because though he continued to delight in her discomfort at every opportunity he had never made another joke… like that. Nor had he made any effort to stop her from stealing naps on the couch in the library or pilfering most of the blankets and pillows from his own bed to furnish her cell.)

Finally the pain in her head begins to clear a little. Belle casts her mind back, trying to figure out how it is she's come to be in this unfamiliar bedroom. She hadn't gone to bed in here—she isn't even entirely sure where in the castle she is—and certainly not still fully dressed. Nor can she think of any reason for her to feel so ill this morning. (Unless perhaps her attempts at dinner last night had been worse than she thought?)

The last thing she remembered was clearing up after supper. Rumplestiltskin had stopped her. Asked her a question…

Her memory after that cuts out.

Belle frowned, rubbing at her temple. She remembers everything beforehand—she had attempted to impose some sense of organization on Rumplestiltskin's jumbled library, and instead spent most of the afternoon buried in a weighty tome detailing several hundred years of the history of the kingdoms. Though the book itself was dry and ponderous, a spidery, childish hand had scrawled wicked commentary all throughout the pages and along the margins, suggesting some very naughty things indeed about the wife of King Athelstan. It had been well past sunset before she remembered herself and hurried to prepare their dinners.

She remembers afterwards—with an almost startling clarity. The warmth of the fire at her back, the dishes rattling at she attempted to negotiate the door with them balanced precariously on one arm, and then Rumplestiltskin's voice saying her name... But everything after that is darkness, like someone had snuffed out a light in her mind.

Belle's head gives another little twinge, as if in punishment for pulling at the memory.

Skirting around the unpleasant puddle on the floor, she finds her shoes left neatly side-by-side next to the bed. She slips them on. If talking to Rumplestiltskin is the last thing she remembers then it only makes sense to go and ask him what happened next. Between her illness and the wall in her mind, she suspects his magic must be involved.

It takes several wrong turns before Belle manages to negotiate her way back to a familiar part of the castle. She finds Rumplestiltskin at his spinning wheel in the great hall. From the looks of things, he's been at it all day again. The basket of straw at his feet is nearly empty.

He doesn't look up when she enters, nor give any sign that he's noticed her.

The steady movement of his hand on the wheel stirs something in the back of her mind—a sudden flash of hands and moonlight and something the color of blood—that's gone before Belle can get a hold on it.

"Catching flies, dearie?"

Belle starts, realizes that she's been staring.

"So, awake at last I see," he says, sly with amusement. "I'll have to be more careful with my wine cellar."

"I'm sorry?"

Wine cellar? Though that would certainly explain her headache.

The wheel creaks to a stop and he turns to peer at her.

"I'm afraid I don't really remember much of last night," she adds, chagrined.

He smiles, hums. "Perhaps the wine was stronger than you thought."

Oh. Yes, that must have been it. She had sometimes found herself ill in the morning if she took too much wine with dinner, though she had never forgotten things before. But then, she had never drunk whatever strange kinds of wine Rumplestiltskin kept in his stores.

"And… why was I in that bedroom?"

"Well I didn't want to leave you asleep on the floor," he tittered.

Belle blushes at that._ On the floor?_ Goodness, how drunk was she last night?

"I'll, er—I'll tidy up the room. I'm afraid I've left a bit of a mess in there."

He gives a dismissive little wave. "Do as you like. It's yours now."

It takes a moment for the words to register properly. "Well… thank you," she says, surprised, and cannot resist adding, "What brought this on?"

"Just tired of my pillows disappearing."

Belle tries to catch his eye, but he's turned back to his wheel.

"I'll just go and make us some tea, then."

"Yes, yes… And perhaps some fresh straw as well?" he adds, hopefully.

"Of course." A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth and Belle turns away quickly before he can see it.

_Rumplestiltskin returns to his spinning while Belle leaves to prepare their tea._

_She pauses at the door and casts one last look back at him over her shoulder, hoping to spark another little flash of recollection. She believed Rumplestiltskin, but the idea of having lost memories doesn't sit well with her._

_But this time there's nothing. The memory flickers just out of reach, buried in an ocean of darkness._


End file.
